Qvadriga is a tactical game of chariot racing in ancient Roman circuses, where you take control of a four horse chariot team. Choose your preferred upgrade combinations and prove your skills at the arena.

Reviews

“a game worth playing for its well-developed mechanics”
8/10 – Softpedia

“Qvadriga really does an awesome job of being the best possible Roman chariot racing game it can be”
A- – Technology Tell

About This Game

Welcome to the Roman circus!

If you have come here it is because you wish to manage your own chariot racing team. Train your drivers and give them the finest equipment and horses. If you do this well, your chariots will provide you with both wealth and fame. but beware! Chariot races are dangerous. Accidents may occur and rival teams might try to harm your charioteers during the race. Make sure you do not grow too attached to your charioteers and always have a replacement available. Good luck!

Qvadriga is a tactical game of chariot racing in ancient Roman circuses, where you take control of a four horse chariot team. Choose your preferred upgrade combinations and prove your skills at the arena. Select the most cunning actions which your team could perform against the best drivers of the old world: shake reins, whip horses, choose lanes, hold tight while negotiating curves, avoid incoming attacks, block enemies path, lacerate and whip them until achieving victory.

Start an epic campaign from the most modest tracks of the empire corners, assemble a mighty team and build your fame through the provinces until reaching enough wealth to finally open the gates of Rome's greatest competition at the Circus Maximus, where you will be able to enter history and reach favour of gods.

Features

Historically modeled circuses with all their styles and particularities. Variable sizes, lengths and shapes, from the classic Greek oval hippodrome to the standard Roman circus.

Variable number of rivals: Participate in tactical four-team races, dive into mayhem with sixteen opponents.

Expert AI able to recognize their situation and maximize their strengths.

Dual game system: paused turn-based gameplay (static) or continuous real time action (dynamic). Play which you like.

Upgradable team components: charioteers' skill and constitution can be improved, also chariot’s quality and size and horses' speed and endurance. Any combination is useful, provided you take advantage of its strengths.

Six historic factions to belong, which grants particular upgrades to your team.

Huge campaign system with seven regions to travel, starting in any of them, from the exotic arenas of the far East to the Northern barbarian borders.

43 circuses to run, seven starting circus available from the beginning, unlock higher category circuses by building your fame.

Unique bonus at every city that could affect all competition aspects.

Race events enrich campaign altering race conditions. Your faction will try to help in the darkest hours, if you are successful your rivals will make things harder.

Buy, sell, heal and repair teams. Find the best components by gaining access to higher category circuses, hire medic, craftsmen and veterinary services to increase performance and configure the most competitive team.

A top-down racing/strategy game based on Roman chariot racing. The game plays in either dynamic (real-time) where you give your aurigas orders on the move, or static which plays as turn-based control over sections of the course (rather like a board game).

You start the game with three men, their chariots and horses belonging to one of 6 factions (each with its own strengths/weaknesses and a couple of extra upgrade points). You visit the shop for repairs and upgrades, then kit out and send one team into a race at a time, allowing other teams to recover from your last folly (if you can afford the fees and repairs, that is)!

When playing the turn-based variant, each 'turn' lasts for a highlighted section of track around the circus. Looking at the section and the positions of your opponents, you have a choice of moves you can click (only one action is allowed per turn). Crucially, these include speeding up or slowing down, switching lanes, taking a defensive stance or whipping, blocking or even crashing into your opponents (no-one said this was a clean fight)! If you're playing the dynamic version the chariots never stop so you have to think fast and give orders with good timing. What you choose is pivotal to your survival and your success. If things go bad (and they will), your man's chariot will break up, leaving him dragging face-first in the dirt. Do you risk everything by insisting he hangs on until the very end (after all, a finish IS a finish...) or do you tell him to run away while he still has his life? Your escapee causes the race to be forfeit but at least your man is still alive (if he didn't get trampled...). New men are expensive to recruit, and no racers means no more game. You have been warned!

To keep things fresh, each circus has its own pros and cons, there are random events that help or hinder you, crowds might lob objects at you, or the debris of other casualties might just finish you off. While it might seem that luck plays a hand, strategic moves will win the race.

Gameplay

The game is entirely mouse-driven and is accompanied by a decent PDF manual. The races are simple and intuitive (all choices are displayed on screen in front of your horses and you simply click the move to be made that turn). However, the user interface for the shop and upgrades is a little confusing (the game could really use some tooltip text help for its buttons as well as mouse-over feedback to show what can and cannot be clicked) but once you understand how to use it and how to buy the most suitable upgrades, everything is fine.

Longevity and value

]The game brings that level of addictiveness associated with any game where you upgrade and then progress a bit further each time to earn more upgrades. Your campaign is lengthy and is retained between sessions so you can pick up where you left off last time. This is no 10-minute throwaway game.

The idea is genius and it's a unique and original game. Production quality is best described as 'functional' with no added polish (there is no fun commentary as was advertised in the video, and it lacks any graphic touches like cut-scenes of a win (or a tragedy). This by no means affects the enjoyment of the game and will mean it can run on any level of kit, but it's sat firmly in the £15 territory where a little bit more polish is usually expected. This is a minor gripe only as the game is otherwise excellent. If you have doubts, there is a free demo you can download. The game can also be bought on Android/iOS (full game with no in-app purchases).

It's a simple enough game, but can get very tense at times. It plays very much like a board game. A pretty good time filler if you've got 15 minutes to kill. The only negative thing I can say about it is that it's overpriced, put it on your wishlist and wait for a sale

In rare form, Slitherine has (as of this writing) temporarily slashed the price for this game in half. While I might normally say go get the mobile tablet version (on which I have countless hours), this is the perfect price point for this time suck of a game and make no mistake, it's unlikely they'll slash it more. So if you've been on the fence, pick a side now!

Like the very best of games out there, it's a mechanically-simple approach to turn-based racing - chariot racing, mind you - that has clearly been inspired by similarly-themed board games of old. Also like the very best of games out there, its simplicity belies its depth. While races last about 5-10 minutes of real-time at most - making it the perfect pick-up-and-play game - you only have a handful of actions you can do on each turn, Qvadriga provides a tactical experience that gives you the right 'feel' of racing around in ancient Rome.

Unlike the staggered starts of the Olympics, chariots will line up side-by-side or even one behind another with random start positions, leading to seemingly unfair, foregone conclusions. However, unlike the Olympics, it's perfectly okay to kill your opponents or their horses by whipping them to death or smashing your chariot into them, which might also damage their wheels enough to throw the driver out, only to be dragged to near-certain death. Not satisfied? It's also perfectly okay to position yourself to block opponents, often causing them to violently smash into your backside, hurting their horses, and therefore their overall speed. Just be mindful that what you can do to others can also be done to you.

While there are similarities to other racers like Gallop Racer or Derby Owner's Club in that you must manage your horse's stamina during the race (too much damage and they slow down, whip 'em to make 'em go faster at the risk of hurting or killing them), the true depth of the game comes from tactically positioning yourself and upsetting your opponents to get ahead. This will be difficult at first, but you will soon be able to second-guess the guy behind you with a pretty good degree of accuracy. Do you try to take the inside lane and make the turn at speed, risking your chariot flipping over? Do you hang back a little bit so you can whip your opponent from his chariot? Do you smash your own chariot into his horses, hoping to drop his four-horse team to a three? Or do you sacrifice the health of your own horses and whip 'em for that extra burst of speed, possibly slowing you down for the remainder of the race if you bleed them?

With single races available, the meat of the game is actually its campaign mode where the goal is to gain enough fame for your team to be invited to the Circus Maximus, the most electrifying arena in Roman entertainment where you can race for the millions (AND MILLIONS) of your team's fans. Essentially you will start off by picking one of the available historical factions which will give you various starting bonuses, but don't worry too much about that as you will eventually replace all of your drivers, horses and chariots over time. From there, you start racing, hoping to survive those early moments until you can make enough money to afford some good stuff. Nothing will stop you from winning, mind you, if you've got the wherewithall to do so. In between races, you will be able to see your team's fame on the local level (with several cities to make your name in) and on the global level. Then you can manage your team, from pure maintenance to purchasing upgrades with your winnings which includes faster, stronger horses, higher quality and more durable chariots, and tougher and more skilled drivers. Each stat for each component of your entry plays into your tactics for the upcoming race. If you front a team of toughness, chances are you'll want to do your best to take out the city's top leaders (who are easily identifiable by their faction color and the number of wins they hold) whereas a faster team will be more dead set on getting a podium finish. Finally, before each race, should you choose to do so, you can place a bet that your team will win and the payouts are tremendous if you manage to do so. Keep it going and if you don't manage to kill all of your drivers, eventually new venues will open up to you for more glory and fame and money.

Overall this is a wonderful little gem of a title and while it won't necessarily hook you with its bland visuals and minimal sound design, once you figure out its magic, you'll be drawn in wholesale.

Got this on sale for 10 dollars since I was worried that it was not worth 20 bucks.

IT IS WORTH 20 dollars! I love this game. It is more addicting than it appears and does have a lot of interesting game play. Sometimes the AI ticks me off - since at first the game appears simple but it is not. The AI crashing into your path just makes you want REVENGE! :-D fun fun fun.

The video for the game doesn't really do it justice. At first, my wife thought that this was the dumbest game based on the graphics and the video, but she enjoys watching me play it (and sometimes plays backseat chariot driver). ;)